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LifeSize Aims to Expand HD Video with 16-Port Bridge Solution

LifeSize unveiled a 16-port videoconferencing bridge that it said will enable organizations to bring HD video to as many parties as they want for multiparty calling.

Mary Miller, director of product marketing at LifeSize, told TMCnet that the company believes the LifeSize Bridge, which offers cinema-quality video at $4,062 per port, will move companies, which until now were hesitant to buy a video bridge, to take the plunge. That’s because LifeSize Bridge is affordable, scalable and offers a high-quality (720p30, 720p60 and 1080p) video experience even at full capacity, Miller said.

Noting that the bridge category is the fastest growing section of the videoconferencing market, Miller added that LifeSize recently conducted a bridge beta program. One very large enterprise, which had more than 120 LifeSize video endpoints but no video bridge from any supplier, during the beta realized the value of this new solution. A small engineering firm that has recently grown through acquisitions, is using the LifeSize Bridge to collaborate among its different offices, Miller said. And a third company that used the LifeSize Bridge had one employee take a picture of the video experience with a cell phone camera, and that led to strong demand for the solution to enable sales meetings at the organization.

“More than 70 percent of all videoconferencing infrastructure spending is on bridges, but the innovation in this segment has lagged behind that of other sectors in IT,” says Roopam Jain, principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “LifeSize Bridge is a boost to the maturity of this market, making a distributed approach to video networks more practical and achievable for all types of organizations who must do more with less without sacrificing quality.”

While LifeSize offers an embedded bridge in some of its existing solutions, Miller commented that it supports up to eight simultaneous participants while LifeSize Bridge doubles that. She added that the previous solution also would require employees that don’t already have access to the system to come to a select spot, whereas the LifeSize Bridge makes HD video to everybody within the organization that needs to use it.

LifeSize Bridge, list priced at $64,999, works in both centralized and distributed networks; allows scheduled and on-demand calls; offers the same capacity and quality regardless of codec, frame rate, call speed, or resolution; and supports over 200 resolutions.

LifeSize, a division of Logitech since December 2009, is headquartered in Austin, Texas. It’s a worldwide organization with 10,000 customers in 80 countries. LifeSize has shipped more than 48,000 units to date to a variety of customers including large enterprises; small and mid-sized businesses; and various verticals, including education, healthcare and government.